Frequency of Waves

The frequency of a wave is a measure of the number of waves made by a source each second, or the number of waves that pass through a particular point in the medium each second. Frequency is measured in units called Hertz (Hz) which is the number of number of wave cycles per second.


 

 

The Wave Equation

This is the equation which relates wave speed, frequency and wavelength.

The animation above shows us that the speed of a wave does not depend on the frequency or the wavelength. As the frequency increases the wavelength decrease so from the wave equation it can be determined that the overall wave speed will remain the same.